Student terrorist targets churches
The Algerian student ordered to carry out attacks on French churches at the weekend hesitated at the last moment, telling unidentified contacts in a Facebook exchange: ‘‘I do not feel that I am ready.’’
Francois Molins, the Paris prosecutor, said Sid Ahmed Ghlam, who was on an antiterrorist watch list, had been taking orders via the internet from someone who was probably in Syria.
Extra police and troops were guarding churches in Paris and other cities as police hunted accomplices of Ghlam, 24, who was arrested after bungling a planned operation to massacre worshippers in a Paris suburb on Monday.
Ghlam has been questioned over the murder of Aurelie Chatelain, 33, a fitness instructor, who was eating breakfast in her parked car in the southern suburb of Villejuif near the church that Ghlam allegedly planned to attack, police say. Ghlam apparently shot himself in the thigh by accident and called for an ambulance.
Prime Minister Manuel Valls ordered a closer guard on Christian sites as France took stock of the concept that the Islamic State terrorist movement had apparently switched its focus from Jewish and anti-Muslim targets and ordered Ghlam, an IT student in Paris, to attack churches.
Valls said Ghlam’s abortive assault was the fifth Islamist attack that had been foiled by antiterrorist police since the shootings in January by French-born Islamists at Charlie Hebdo magazine and a kosher supermarket in which 17 people were killed.
As leaders of French Muslim organisations voiced solidarity with the Catholic Church, Ghlam remained silent under police questioning over who ordered the operation that was cut short on Monday morning.
It was not clear why he had attacked Chatelain, who was from the Calais area and taking a fitness course in Paris, but police speculated that she might have resisted an attempt to steal her car as a getaway vehicle.
The bleeding leg forced Ghlam to abort his attack and drive back to his student residence in Paris and call an ambulance.
Police followed his blood to his parked car, which contained Kalashnikov assault rifles, combat vests and other material.
Investigators found details of targeted churches and more weapons in his flat as well as traces of communications with Islamist organisations.
The quantity of weapons suggested that Ghlam, a quiet, model student who grew up in Algeria and France, must have had accomplices, Valls said.